Moderator: Eli Krasniqi (RKS) Translation into English and Albanian will be provided.

The immediacy that characterizes the way we access information today, together with many other technological advances, adds a new dimension to the issue of exile and to our experience of political unrests. In addition, media text often is used to further reinforce gender stereotypes for developing countries or countries in political crisis. Specifically in focus are women for whom the exile experience may be double burdened because of their gender identity and identity attached to them because of the country of origin. Does literature helps to break these stereotypical images? Do artists, especially women, find themselves in situation to reconcile the perceptions about them in the ‘hosting’ country with those in the country of origin? Do women writers in exile are considered as/reduced to cultural interpreters?

Moderator: Una Hajdari (RKS) Translation into English and Albanian will be provided.

The discussion will focus on the respective contexts in the countries that writers and intellectuals Gregory Pardlo, Nir Baram, Fatos Lubonja and Theodoros Grigoriadis live and work in. Their verse is vivid in its portrayal of the complex realities that the communities they write about have faced over time, and we will try to place these realities in the current global political and societal context. Comparisons will be drawn between the situation in Pardlo’s native U.S., which is facing one of its most turbulent presidencies to date, Greece, which is still suffering the consequences of austerity and an inadequate economic plan amidst rising right-wing movements, and Israel, where Baram writes about equal rights for Palestinians.

How does a writer react to the situation, and to what extent does it influence their contemplations on society?

Moderator: Lura Limani (RKS) Translation into English and Albanian will be provided.

Human history is no stranger to migration, but it is in the age of global capital–sustained by transnational institutions, corporations and cooperation that we have witnessed the radical acceleration of all kinds of movement. In 2015, 244 million people were international migrants (living outside the country they were born in), and 20 million of these were refugees. ‘The refugee crisis’; the permanent state of war; the looming climate disaster; and the nationalist reawakening accompanying these phenomena raise questions about the role of the writer, especially the migrant writer, in what often feels like the end of time.

From Dante to Danticat, exile and heimweh, a longing for the lost home and ambiguity towards the newly found shelter and self have been at the heart of literature. This spatial and temporal experience marks the relation of the writer to their surroundings, the ties to their ‘homeland,’ the acceptance and rejection of their adopted home. What does this relation mean for contemporary writers? How can we define the tension between home and elsewhere today? How does it affect our language? How does that reflect on our imagined addresses – to whom do we write, and in what language do we address them? How does our spatial positioning force us to define ourselves and our work – who we are and what we do?

Moderator: Saša Ilić (SRB) Translation into English and Albanian will be provided.

Charles Simic, an American poet of Serbian descent, observed in 2012 that “widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal”, referring to the United States of America four years before Trump even came to power. It seems that he was right. In addition, he claimed that the educated, well informed population is the only possible foundation of a true, functioning democracy. If politicians of dubious qualities come to power through the democratic process, then it is clear that the voters’ insight, knowledge and ability to make informed decisions should be questioned.

Simic does not offer any solutions to the issues he highlights. However, like himself, we – the participants of the Polip festival – feel urged to debate these issues, as they relate not only to global politics, but to regional politics as well. Furthermore, this is not the first time that the global events have had its most pronounced form in the Balkans. Whereas the great majority of people in the Western world are stunned by the latest developments and the spirit that has prevailed – not only in the United States, but in the EU too – the people in the Balkans are well used to the complex relations between ignorance and intelect, truth and lies, democracy and dictatorship. We could say that, in fact, the Balkans appear to be the avangarde, like it has been many times in the past, even though in the Western imagination it exists as a backward place. But, who was the first to spread fake news in order to create conditions for inciting hatred? Who was the first to mobilise masses and create policies using “alternative facts“? Who was the first to use the democratic process in order to gain power, only to abolish democratic institutions immediately after being elected? Hardly anyone could deny the Balkans all the hard work and the fervour put in creating this type of politics – without doubt this region merits the avant-garde status.

THE AGE OF BIGOTED

Literature in Exile/Elites in A Political Fever

The political arena has been shaken significantly in the year we have left behind– BREXIT, Trump’s victory, the rise of the right-wing populism across Europe – which,in turn, will bring about many changes. The Chinese ancient curse‘May you live in interesting times’, often quoted by Hanna Arendt in discussions on political crisis, comes to mind. A massive flux of refugees and migrants, with the right-wing on the rise, has exposed cultural, ethnic and religious tensions lurking beneath the surface in Europe. The post-Communist countries, including those in the Western Balkans striving to enter the EU, have also been deeply affected by the political turbulences, mainly because of their corrupt governments and the lack of tangible economic development.

A recent period which was marked by progress, albeit conditional, towards a more stable Western Balkans has now been replaced by a tumultuous phase of permanent provocations and suspended dialogue. In place of talks, the political elites chose instead high-risk performance acts. At the moment both Serbia’s and Kosovo’s political elites operate outside of The Brussels Agreement framework, while simultaneously maintaining their pledge that the process of normalization of their relations has no alternative. The relations between Belgrade and Zagreb, and between Belgrade and Sarajevo, are not much better either. The opposition in these countries offers no political solutions, while some representatives of the opposition demand radicalization of the relations or even for the dialogue to be completely abandoned. In such circumstances culture and literature are threatened by being subjected to ideological interferences and exposed to increased surveillance. Literature is,hence,forced into exile – both an external and internal one. In the spheres of culture and literature it is possible to look for the answers that politics is unable to offer, openly refusing to confront the problems in the first place. Finally, literature doesn’t offer solutions, that’s not its purpose, but rather proposes critical examination of the political and cultural processes, as Predrag Matvejević (1932-2017), one of the most prominent intellectuals of the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav period, said in the past.

For many, if not for the majority, migration is the exit strategy from the political and economic crisis. Whereas some people from this part of the world want to leave ‘home’, others are forced to leave ‘home’ – predominantly people from Syria and other countries in the Middle East,thus confirming the state of exile as an inevitable part of the human condition.

The immediacy that characterizes the way we access information today, together with many other technological advances,adds a new dimension to the issue of exile and to our experience of political unrests. In line with this, one could pose a question – does literature adopt a new dimension of creation and consumption? How does literature respond to mobility (or a lack thereof)and to the idea of home or multiple ‘homes’? Simultaneously, saturation with images portraying political crisis, makes literature a space of possibilities, a bridge to plurality of experiences of the self in relation to others, of new spaces in relation to the known ones. The very use of language, being the sole medium of writers, enables us to grasp the complexity of human condition in a profound way.

‘Polip’, the International literature festival taking place in Pristina 12-15 May 2017 will bring together thirty authors from different parts of the world, some of them living and working in exile.